Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

They say that, when big business sneezes, small business gets the flu. What this minister and this government does not understand is that, under this great big new mining tax policy, not only will big business sneeze but small business will suffer a cardiac arrest. How can they understand business when they do not understand the impact and the effects of their business? To the government, who are now in the process of consulting, I say: it is a little bit late now, after you have put the figures into the budget showing what you expect to reap, to go down the path of consultation. One would have thought that someone who understood business and understood government policy would have had the consultation prior to putting it down on paper in the budget.

The figures are in the budget showing how much is expected to be raised—it will be raised off the back of business and in particular small business. It is not just the big mining industries that are going to feel the effect of this. The mob opposite do not seem to understand that, when big mining companies make an investment, whether it is in exploration or starting up new fields, they employ small business to get the jobs done. They employ the people with the drilling rigs, the excavators and the trucks and they employ the electricians, the hydrologists and the surveyors—and that is just on site. The list goes on and on. When they need to procure the equipment, they engage small business to supply that equipment. This government do not understand the downstream effect of expenditure by big business. They have walked into this place claiming they understand big business. They thought the only people they were going to penalise were big offshore companies. The reality is that there are many small businesses, including small mining companies, that will be affected—many so badly they may not be able to continue in business.

This is the government that thought they knew about business in their management of the insulation batts. The result of their program there was to destroy small businesses. You cannot undermine investor confidence in business and expect investment to continue. If this government will not take advice from anyone but their own people, if they will not take advice from the coalition opposition, they should at least take advice from fellow Queenslander Anna Bligh, the Premier of Queensland, who said on ABC online on 10 May:

You can’t expect international companies to make those investment decisions unless they’ve got absolute certainty about the costs of doing business.

The whole thing about being in business is having a solid, stable and secure platform by which to develop your business plan so that you can proceed with a level of confidence. What we see from this government is one position today and another position tomorrow. We saw four different positions last week. They do not understand the ramifications of their actions. This government laid out a policy, made the announcement and put it in the budget and they are now considering changing it to reduce the impact. They do not understand the impact of what they have done.

This tax will affect 500,000 Australian workers whose jobs depend directly or indirectly on the mining industry in Australia. In the Hunter Valley there are 15,000 people directly employed and 50,000 indirectly employed in the mining industry. Many of those live in my electorate. I know them. My children go to school with their children. I meet with them regularly; I understand the issues that they have—and the biggest thing that worries them at the moment is job security. We have seen a plethora of investment companies and mining companies talking about the business case no longer stacking up to start new work. Miners need security because of the risk to their investment.

If you do not want to take the word of the opposition on the impact of your policies on small business, look to independent groups such as the Hunter Business Chamber, an independent representative organisation that has over 1,000 business members on its books, many of them small businesses. Its CEO, Peter Shinnick, said about this tax:

The proposed resource super profit resource tax is wrong and requires re-thinking. The impost on the resources sector is already causing the deferral of business investment, which will flow on through the industry if retained in its present form.

I say to this government: you have got it wrong—you have got it wrong for the industry; you have got it wrong for the workers; you have got it wrong for the communities at large. In fact, on 3 May 2010 there were articles in the Newcastle Herald headed ‘40% tax on coal profits has Hunter coal companies up in arms over “blatant tax grab”‘ and ‘Effects of super tax touch “every level” of sector’. The first article said:

Hunter mines exported about $8 billion worth of coal last year, plus another $1 billion or more in domestic sales, and contributed about $900 million in state mining royalties.

On these figures, the Hunter’s contribution to the new ‘super tax’ could be as much as $3 billion a year.

That is $3 billion that will not be able to be spent on downstream businesses. This will have a massive impact.

Regarding the government’s previous great big tax, the ETS tax—the one whose name we shall never speak before the election; its name should never be mentioned—the Newcastle Herald, reporting on the Access Economics report commissioned by the New South Wales Labor government, said that 17,000 jobs in the Hunter would go from the mining, aluminium and energy sector. When you add that ETS tax and the impact of the loss of 17,000 jobs to this super tax grab from the mining industry, who knows what the figures are? This government has never come clean and talked about what the downstream job impact will be.

Who has been deadly silent on this tax? Actually, they came out and rejoiced about both the ETS and this tax. They are the Labor members in this House who are supposed to represent the mining workers—those blue-collar workers. What about their rights at work? When are these members going to stand up for those who voted for them and put them in their positions in here to represent them? They have been silent. Where is the member for Hunter? Where is the member for Newcastle? Where is the member for Charlton? They all represent very large sectors of the mining industry. Do they come out and support their miners? No. Do they come out and support the mines? Do they come out and support the small businesses? No. They tell them that this is a good tax that will grow the industry. You do not have to be Einstein to ask, if this tax were so good that it would create growth in an industry: why aren’t we putting it across every industry? If this government were fair dinkum about introducing such a supertax, why not put a tax across the unions on their profits above the long-term bond rate? Why should you be exempt with all those millions of dollars that you rake in? No, you want to penalise easy targets, or what you thought were easy targets, but you are affecting the people you are supposed to represent. (Time expired)

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